When the meteoric iron Volz shipped out was cut,
very tiny diamonds were discovered in it. For a long time this fact
remained a closely guarded secret. Several strangers entered the rolling
country looking around. Subsequently it developed that they hoped to find
a diamond mine. Those contained in the iron were too small and too
difficult of recovery to be profitable.
Unknown at this early stage of Meteor Crater's history was that not all
the outer space visitor was composed of iron. There had also been in the
mass a stony, slate-like substance. This material contained larger
diamonds that could be broken out with a hammer.

At some early date a mysterious and aged prospector,
Adolph Cannon, discovered the diamonds. The stony material was not
identified for many years. Today this fact is denied, or that any diamonds
whatever are found in meteorite fragments; but this is likely a safeguard
to prevent a wild diamond hunting rush leading to a stampede of
prospectors. Not all of the land over which the fragments fell on contact
with the earth is under control to prevent pillage.

Cannon was a non-talking man who went to Winslow
not more than three times a year for necessary supplies. During the
winters he lived in the smaller caves of upper Canyon Diablo, but never in
the Apache death cave.

He always carried a large sum of currency when in
town. Yet he never sold any diamonds. This transaction would have had to
be made in or through a railroad town. That he had collected many pokes of
diamonds is certain. Over the years he was seen picking up meteor
fragments and breaking them out.

Sheepherders, cowboys and prospectors who spied on
him occasionally, thought he searched for the outlaws' loot near Two Guns.
Yet if so he certainly hunted far from where it was supposedly buried.

Reputable men observing Cannon several times when
they had business in the area, were convinced that he cached a hoard of
diamonds. Also hidden away in caves and cliff dwellers' ruins were more
pieces of the exploded meteorite picked up on the range.

For something like thirty years Cannon plodded the
widely strewn area. At his heels followed a burro carrying panniers slung
from a forked saddle. When finding a piece of meteorite he knew contained
one or more diamonds, he tossed it into a pannier.

Exaggerated tales spread about Cannon's hoard of
diamonds. One individual meeting him unexpectedly in the area offered to
make contacts for their sale. The yarns also drew hardcases who hoped to
rob him of the alleged wealth in stones. On one occasion at least, two
were prevented from killing him from ambush by a deer hunter who followed
them until they assumed ambush positions. After driving them off, the
hunter warned Cannon, who merely regarded him bleak-eyed.

The old man, approaching eighty, was seen alive
the last time in 1917. Then in 1928 a gravel hauler found the skeleton of
a man in a pit east of Winslow on the Little Colorado. The skull had two
bullet holes in it.

Investigating lawmen found with the skeleton and
rotted clothing a wallet containing a piece of paper with his name on it,
a small mug shot of Cannon taken when a younger man, and a pocket knife
known to belong to him. From this evidence, clothing buttons, belt buckle
and "buck" teeth, the remains were legally established as those of Cannon.
The coroner's physician said that he had been dead at least ten years.

No money whatever was found with the skeleton, and
no diamonds. The investigating officers theorized that robbery was the
motive for his murder. But they could not account for how he happened to
be on the river near Winslow so far from his regular stamping grounds.

Not long after discovery of his skeleton a burly
man staggered into a Pitchfork line camp near Jack's Canyon. Fatally
wounded, he had a buckskin pouch filled rough diamonds. Before dying he
told the two cowboys stationed there that he and a partner had found one
of Cannon's diamond caches, over which they had fought. After being
wounded from a bushwhack shot the man then killed his partner, shooting
him twice with a sixgun.

Although the cowboys tried to get him to the
Winslow hospital the unknown man - nothing by way of identification on him
- died at sunup while en route.

The cowboys informed the local deputy sheriff of
the matter, and hastened to Black's jewelry store where they showed the
glistening white stones to the proprietor. Making tests, he pronounced
them diamonds of a good industrial quality. Taking the next train to
California the cowboys were not seen again in Arizona.

The sheriff's deputy took a search party out
hunting for the camp where the fatal fight supposedly had taken place.
They could not find it nor the body of a dead man.